


Woman In Gold

by WhenIFindLoveAgain



Category: The Infernal Devices Series - Cassandra Clare, 방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys | BTS
Genre: Beautiful, Brief heterosexual sex scene, Comedy, F/F, F/M, Falling In Love, Female Homosexuality, Friendship/Love, Love Triangles, M/M, Male Homosexuality, Marriage, Romance, Underage Sex, brief homosexual sex scene x2, sadness but lovely
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-27
Updated: 2016-12-27
Packaged: 2018-09-12 15:28:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 11,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9078721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhenIFindLoveAgain/pseuds/WhenIFindLoveAgain
Summary: So shine on, just shine on, close your eyes and it’ll all be gone. They can scream and shout that they’ve been sold out, but it paid for the cloud that we’re dancing on. So shine on, just shine on, with your smile just as bright as the sun. ‘Cause they’re all just slaves to the Gods they’ve made, but you and I just shone, just shone.





	1. Chapter 1

Prolouge  
. . . . . . .  
Sophie was tending a blazing fire in the drawing room grate, and the room was warm, almost stuffy. Charlotte sat behind her desk, Henry in the chair beside her. Will was sprawled in one of the flowered armchairs beside the fire, a silver tea service at his elbow and a cup in his hand. When Tessa walked in, he sat upright so abruptly that some of the tea spilled on his sleeve; he set the cup down without taking his eyes off her.  
He looked exhausted, as if he had been walking all night. He still wore his overcoat, of dark blue wool with a red silk lining, and the legs of his black trousers were spattered with mud. His hair was damp and tangled, his face pale, his jaw dark with the shadow of stubble. At the moment he saw Tessa, his eyes glowed like lanterns at the touch of the lamplighter’s match. His whole face changed, and he gazed upon her with such inexplicable delight that Tessa, astonished, stopped in her tracks, causing Jem to bump into her. For that moment, she could not look away from Will; it was as if he held her gaze to him, and she remembered again the dream she had had the night before, that she was been comforted by him in the infirmary. Could he read the memory of it on her face? Was that why he was staring?  
Jem peered around her shoulder. “Hallo, Will. Sure it was a good idea to spend all night out in the rain when you’re still healing?”  
Will tore his eyes away from Tessa. “I am quite sure,” he said firmly. “I had to walk. To clear my head.”  
“And your head is clear now?”  
“Like crystal,” Will said, returning his gaze to Tessa, and the same thing happened again. Their gazes seemed to lock together, and she ahd to tear her eyes away and move across the room to sit on the sofa near the desk, where Will was not in her direct line of sight. Jem came and sat down beside her, but did not reach for her hand. She wondered what would happened if they announced what had just happened now, casually: The two of us are going to be married.   
But Jem had been correct; it was not the right time for that.  
Charlotte looked as if, like Will, she had been awake all night; her skin was a sickly yellow colour, and there were dark auburn bruises beneath her eyes. Henry sat beside her at the desk, his hand protectively over hers, watching her with a worried expression.  
“We are all here, then,” Charlotte said briskly, and for a moment Tessa wanted to remark that they were not, for Jessamine was not with them. She stayed silent. “As you probably know, we are near the end of the two-week period granted to us by Consul Wayland. We have not discovered the whereabouts of Mortmain. According to Enoch, the Silent Brothers have examined Nathaniel Gray’s body and learned nothing from it, and as he is dead, we can learn nothing from him.”  
And as he is dead, Tessa thought of Nate as she remembered him, when they ahd been very young, chasing dragonflies in the park. He had fallen in the pond, and she and Aunt Harriet – his mother – had helped to pull him out; his hand had been slippery with water and green-growing underwater plants. She remembered his hand sliding out of hers in the tea warehouse , slippery with blood. You don’t know everything I’ve done, Tessie.   
“We can certainly report what we know about Benedict to the Clave,” Charlotte was saying when Tessa forcibly snapped her mind back to the conversation at hand. :It would seem to be the sensible course of action.”  
Tessa swallowed. “What about what Jessamine said? That we’d be playing into Mortmain’s hands by doing so.”   
“But we cannot so nothing,” said Will. “We cannot sit back and hand over the keys of the institute to Benedict Lightwood and his lamentable offspring. They are Mortmain. Benedict is his puppet. We must try. By The Angel, haven’t we enough evidence? Enough to earn him by trial by the Sword, at least?”  
“When we tried the Sword on Jessamine, there were blocks in her mind put there by Mortmain,” Charlotte said wearily. “Do you think Mortmain would be so unwise as to not take the same precaution with Benedict? We will all look like fools if the Sword can get nothing out of him.”  
Will ran his hands through his black hair. “Mortmain expects us to go to the Clave,” he said. “It would be his first assumption. He is also used to cutting free associates for whom he no longer has a use. De Quincey, for instance. Lightwood is not irreplaceable to him and he knows it.” He drummed his fingers on his knees. “I think that if we went to the Clave, we would certainly get Benedict taken out of the running for the leadership of the Institute. But there is a segment of the Clave that follows his lead; some are known to us, but others are not. It is a sad fact, but we do not know whom we can trust beyond ourselves. The Institute is secure with us, and we cannot allow it to be taken away. Where else will Tessa be safe?”  
Tessa blinked. “Me?”  
Will looked taken aback, as if startled by what he had just said. “Well, you are an integral part of Mortmain’s plan. He has always wanted you. He has always needed you. We must not let him have you. Clearly you would be a powerful weapon in his hands.”   
“All of that is true, Will, and of course I will go to the Consul,” said Charlotte. “But as an ordinary Shadowhunter, not as head of the Institute.”  
“But why, Charlotte?” Jem demanded. “You excel at your work –“  
“Do I?” she demanded. “For the second time I have not noted a spy under my own roof; Will and Tessa easily evaded my guardianship to attend Benedict’s party; our plan to capture Nate, which we never shared with the Consul, went awry, leaving us with a potentially important witness dead –“  
“Lottie!” Henry put his hand on his wife’s arm.  
“I am not fit to run this place,” said Charlotte. “Benedict was right….I will, of course, try to convince the Clave of his guilt. Someone else will run the Institute. It will not be Benedict, I hope, but it will not be me, either –“  
There was a clatter. “Mrs. Branwell!” it was Sophie. She had dropped the poker and turned away from the fire. “You can’t resign, ma’am. You – you simply can’t.”  
“Sophie,” Charlotte said very kindly. “Wherever we go after this, wherever Henry and I set up our household, we will bring you –“  
“It isn’t that,” Sophie said in a small voice. Hey eyes darted around the room. “Miss Jessamine – She were – I mean, she was telling the truth. If you go to the Clave like this, you’ll be playing into Mortmain’s plans.”  
Charlotte looked at her, perplexed. “What makes you say that?”  
“I don’t – I don’t know exactly.” Sophie looked at the floor. “But I know it’s true.”  
“Sophie?” Charlotte’s tone was querulous, and Tessa knew what she was thinking: Do they have another spy? Another serpent in their garden? Will, too, was leaning forward with narrowed eyes.   
“Sophie’s not lying,” Tessa said abruptly. “She knows because – because we overheard Gideon and Gabriel speaking of it in the training room.”  
“And only know you decide to mention it?” Will arched his brows.   
Suddenly, unreasonably furious with him, Tessa snapped, “Be quiet, Will. If you –“   
“I’ve been stepping out with him,” Sophie interrupted loudly. “With Gideon Lightwood. Seeing him on my days off.” She was as pale as a ghost. “He told me. He heard his father laughing about it. They knew Jessamine was found out. They were hoping you’d got to the Clave. I should’ve said something, but ti seemed like you didn’t want to go to them, anyways, so I…”  
“Stepping out?” echoed Henry incredulously. “With Gideon Lightwood?”  
Sophie was keeping her attention on Charlotte, who was gazing at her, round-eyed. “I know what Mortmain is holding over Mr. Lightwood, too,” she said. “Gideon only just found out. His Father doesn’t know that he knows.”  
“Well, dear God, girl, don’t just stand there,” said Henry, who looked as poleaxed as his wife. “Tell us.”  
“Demon pox,” said Sophie. “Mr Lightwood’s got it, has had it for years, and it’ll kill him in a right couple of months if he doesn’t get the cure. And Mortmain said he can get it for him.”  
The room exploded in hubbub. Charlotte raced over to Sophie; Henry called after her; Will leapt from his chair and was dancing in a circle. Tessa stayed where she was, stunned, and Jem remained beside her. Meanwhile, Will appeared to be singing a song about how he had been right about demon pox all along.   
“Demon pox, oh, demon pox,  
Just how is it acquired?  
One must go down to the bad part of town  
Until one is very tired.  
Demon pox, oh, demon pox,  
I ahd it all along–  
No, not the pox. You foolish blocks,  
I mean this very song–  
For I was right, and you were wrong!”  
“Will!” Charlotte shouted over the noise. “Have you LOST YOU MIND? CEASE THAT INFERNAL RAKCET! Jem –“  
Jem, rising to his feet, clapped his hands over Will’s mouth. “Do you promise to be quiet?” he hissed into his friends ear.  
Will nodded, blue eyes blazing. Tessa was staring after him in amazement; they all were. She had seen Will many things – amused, bitter, condescending, angry, pitying – But never giddy before.  
Jem let him go. “All right, then.”  
Will slid to the floor, his back against the armchair, and threw his arms up. “A demon pox on all your houses!” he announced, and yawned.   
“Oh God, weeks of pox jokes,” said Jem. “We’re for it now.”  
“It can’t be true,” said Charlotte. “It’s simply – demon pox?”  
“How do we know that Gideon did not lie to Sophie?” Jem asked, his tone mild. “I am sorry, Sophie. I hate to have to say it, but the Lightwoods are not trustworthy…”  
“I’ve seen Gideon’s face when he looks at Sophie,” said Will. “It was Tessa who told me first that Gideon fancied our Miss Collins, and I thought back, and realized it was true. And a man in love – a man in love will tell anything. Betray anyone.” He was staring at Tessa as he spoke. She stared back; she could not help it. Her gaze felt pulled to him. The way he looked at her, with those blue eyes like pieces of the sky, as if trying to communicate something to her silently. But what on earth…?  
She did owe him her life, she realized with a start. Perhaps he had been waiting for her to thank him. But there had been no time, no chance! She resolved to thank him at the first possible opportunity that presented itself. “Besides, Benedict was holding a demon woman in lap at that party of his, kissing her,” Will went on, glancing away. “She had snakes for eyes. Each man to his own, I suppose. Anyway, the only way you can contract demon pox is by having improper relations with a demon, so…”  
“Nate told me Mr Lightwood preferred demon women,” said Tessa. “I don’t suppose his wife ever knew about that.”   
“Wait.” It was Jem, who had suddenly gone very still. “Will – what are the symptoms of demon pox?”   
“Quite nasty,” said Will with relish. “It begins with shield-shaped rash on one’s back, and spreads over the body, creating cracks and fissures in the skin –“  
Jem expelled a gasp of breath. “I – I shall return,” he said, “In just a moment. By the Angel –“  
And he vanished out the door, leaving the other’s staring after him.  
“You don’t think he has demon pox, do you?” Henry inquired of no one in particular.   
I hope not, since we just got engaged, Tessa had the urge to say – just to see the looks on their faces – but repressed it.   
“Oh, shut up, Henry,” said Will, and looked as if he were to say something else, but the door banged opened and Jem was back in the room, panting, holding a piece of parchment. “I got this from the Silent Brothers,” he said, “when Tessa and I went to see Jessamine.” He gave Tessa a slightly guilty look from underneath his fair hair, and she remembered him leaving Jessamine’s cell and returning moments later, looking preoccupied. “It is the report on Barbara Lightwood’s death. After Charlotte told us that her Father had never turned Silas Lightwood over to the Clave, I thought u would inquire of the Silent Brother’s if there was another manner in which Mrs. Lightwood had died. To see if Benedict had also lied that she had died of grief.”  
“And had he?” Tessa leaned forward, fascinated.   
“Yes. In fact, she ahd cut her own wrists. But there was more.”  
He looked down at the paper in his hand. “A shield-shaped rash, indicative of the heraldic marks of astriola, upon the left shoulder.” He held it out to Will, who took it and scanned it, his blue eyes widening.   
“Astriola,” he said. “That is demon pox. You had evidence that demon pox existed and you didn’t mention it to me! Et tu, Brute!” he rolled up the paper and hit Jem over the head with it.   
“Ouch!” Jem rubbed his head ruefully. “The words meant nothing to me! I assumed that it was some sort of minor ailment, it hardly seemed as if it were what killed her. she slit her wrists, but if Benedict wanted to protect his children from the fact that their mother had taken her own life –“  
“By the Angel,” Charlotte said softly. “No wonder she killed herself. Because her husband gave her demon pox. And she knew it.” She whirled on Sophie, who made a little gasping noise. “Does Gideon know of this?”  
Sophie shook her head, saucer-eyed. “No.”  
“But wouldn’t the Silent Brother’s be obligated to tell someone if they discovered this?” Henry demanded. “It seems – well, dash it. Irresponsible to say the least –“  
“Of course they would tell someone. They would tell her husband. And no doubt they did. But what of it? Benedict probably already knew,” said Will. “There would have been no need to tell the children; the rash appears when one has first contracted the disease, so they were too old for her to have passed it on to them. The Silent Brother’s doubtless told Benedict, and he said “Horrors!” and promptly concealed the whole thing. One cannot prosecute the dead for improper relations with demons, so they burned her body, and that was that.”  
“So how is it Benedict is still alive?” Tessa reprimanded, her tone as fine, but sharper than any blade. “Should the disease not have killed him by this time present?”  
“Mortmain,” supplied Sophie. “He’s been giving him drugs to destablelize – slow – the process of the disease all this time.”   
“Destablelize it, not stop it?” asked Will.   
“No, he’s still dying, and faster than ever now,” Sophie replied. “That’s why he’s so desperate, and he’ll do anything Mortmain wants. Hell-bent, uncontrollable destruction.”  
“Demon Pox!” Will whispered, and looked at Charlotte. Despite his clear excitement, there was a steady light flickering behind his blue eyes, a light of sharp intelligence, as if he were a chess player examining his next move for potential advantages or drawbacks. “We must contact Benedict immediately,” he said. “Charlotte must play on his vanity. He is too sure of getting the Institute. She must tell him that through the Consul’s official decision is not scheduled until Sunday, she has realized that it is he who will come out ahead, and she wishes to meet with him and make peace before it happens.”  
“Benedict is stubborn –“Charlotte began.   
“Not as much as he is proud,” said Jem. “Benedict has always wanted control of the Institute, but he also wants to humiliate you, Charlotte. To prove that a woman cannot run an Institute. He believes that on Sunday the Consul will rule to take the Institute away from you, but that does not mean he will be able to pass up a chance to see you grovel in private.”  
“To what end?” Henry demanded. “Sending Charlotte to confront Benedict accomplishes what, exactly?”  
“Blackmail.” Replied Will.


	2. Chapter One

Chapter One  
. . . . . . .  
Tessa lay sleepless on top of her covers thinking, thinking, unable to stop. Images flashed up before her eyes, some causing her to flinch, others to smile, others to laugh ever so quietly, weakly though.

. . . . . . . 

“How the hell do we get up there?” Jungkook whispered from his seat on his motorcycle to where Min Yoon-gi leant against the black body, smoking a hand-rolled cigarette, containing what substance, Jungkook didn’t know.   
Min glanced long up at the curtained window taking a deep drag from his fag. “I really pictured a more heroic way of doing this, but at the moment we’re stuck with throwing stones at her window. Hoping she’s awake, we don’t break the window and we don’t wake any other persons up who we will most definitely hate.” Opined Min with a side-long glance at Jungkook who had a thoroughly unimpressed grace about him.   
Jungkook swept parts of his brown hair from his eyes and resisted the urge to roll them.   
“So you’re basing complete and utter disaster on a game of chance? Nice thinking, Min.” Jungkook’s tone was not sarcastic, merely derisive.   
Min raised an eyebrow softly before letting it drop. He dropped the butt of his now finished cigarette on the ground and ground it into the grass for a moment before pulling a bag, about purse size, from the depths of his long black coat opening it, picking a stone, aimed, and threw the stone at the window.   
“Well it’s your grandmother that hopes, and thinks she’s dead. I’d love to prove the old bitch wrong with substantial evidence.” Min added matter-of-factly. 

. . . . . . . 

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.   
Tessa hesitantly got out of bed, wrapping her dressing gown around her being before cautiously stepping to the window, drawing back the heavy dark curtains.   
She could see nothing. Opening it cautiously she leant out into the cool dark night, the stars unseasonably visible in the sky – white sequins against dark silk.   
She opened the window latch and poked the upper half of her being out, automatically looking down.   
Her hand, the other balancing her being on the window ledge, flew to her mouth to smother a shriek as her eyes widened.   
Jungkook and Min bumped knuckles, both grinning. Jungkook averted his gaze to the window three stories above and his heart fluttered in his chest. He didn’t notice Min taking account of the soft gazing look in his eyes as he stared up at Tessa.  
Tessa removed her hand from her mouth and quickly calculated the events which had fallen upon her in the last minute.   
The boys are here, I think I might be having a heart attack, and how on earth did they get the motorcycle across customs and the City without bringing hell down upon themselves? She though in wonderment, happy tears filling up her grey eyes. She quickly turned away from the window as one found its way and slipped down her cheek. With little anguish, she threw open her door and sped down the hallway, light and nearly soundless as she flew down the staircase and seemingly endless halls until she got to the Entrance hall where she came to skidding halt.   
Slowly, thrice, she breathed in and out before relaxing her shoulders back lazily, pushing her front and chest forward and then finally herself through the heavy wooden door, overtaking the risk of opening It manually and waking the whole Institute down to the last suspected mouse.   
Tessa exhaled deeply afterwards and reopened her eyes. She lightly treaded over to the two boys, one sitting the other leaning against the gleaming ebony motorcycle, her lips briefly flickering into a smile. She gathered the two into her arms and didn’t hesitate the warm tears that fell from her lashes.   
Tessa had no idea of how many minutes – hours even – the three were like that, but she knew it must haven’t been a certain amount of time for her eyes started to grow heavy and her legs began to ache from been in that same position.   
“Min, Jungkook, what on earth are you doing here?” She asked quietly.  
“We know what’s happening. We know about Mortmain, and his infernal devices, and the web that you are now caught in.” Jungkook’s brown eyes searched Tessa’s soulfully. “We know about the Dark Sisters, and the Pandemonium, and we know that they know about you powers.”  
“How?” every single emotion on the planet was harbored into that single word.   
“A letter, a long one, from Everard Frost,” Min supplied.   
“Where are the rest of the rest of the boys?”  
“They’re staying with Master Hu at Longbourne Abbey. Tess, we came here to bring you home.” Jungkook added slowly his eyes wide, becoming afraid of what her answer would be.  
“I know, Jungkook.” The backs of her finger’s lightly brushed his cheek. “But I can’t come back with you and Min. I couldn’t if I tried.” She was quietly shattering to pieces internally. “I love you guys more than anything in the world, but I cannot come back.”  
Min closed his eyes. “Tessie, if you cannot come home, we will come here. We love you, and we need you. To all of us you’re like our sister, our best friend. You are part of the band, you virtually made us. But we love you. But too much not to be able to let you go.”  
Tessa gave Min a long look, the feeling of breaking down never plaguing her so much in her life as that moment. 

. . . . . . . 

When Tessa woke the next morning her head rocked swimmily, and she felt a fool with such stupid, stupid dreams.  
The boys wouldn’t know, how could I think that? You stupid, stupid woman. You have nothing else, don’t force yourself to believe so. Those agonizing words echoed in her head and she felt saddened by it, though unable to shake it from her.  
As Sophie helped her into her blue dress, Tessa felt as though she were underwater, strangely weightless, Sophie’s voice distant and drifting. Like moonbeams on the sea, the quote from Shelley rang in Tessa’s ears.  
“…Miss, May I ask yair – you – a question?” Sophie’s tone was slightly hesitant as she ran the silver-backed hairbrush through Tessa’s fine brunette hair.   
“Yes, of course you can, Sophie.” Tessa’s tone was light and welcoming, and it surprised her greatly.  
“Miss, how do you know if…if a boy is fallin’ in love with yair?” Sophie blurted out, her cockney accent slipping in.  
At that Tessa’s expression became fore-closed, her eyes now regal and half-lids. “To be quite honest, Sophie, it depends on the man. There is a science to these things, that will never be accurately explained, even by myself. Gideon Lightwood…first of all, how does he make you feel? Have you ever felt wary, unsure in his presence? When you two have been by yourselves, does he treat you right? Has he ever mistreated you, ever shown any sign that underneath the exterior you know there is a sleeping dragon?”   
Sophie’s eyebrows flew up her fore-head. “’e’s perfect to me, always. ‘e’s kind, incredibly so. ‘e makes me feel safe, gives me confidence, makes me worry less, makes me ‘appy, Miss. And, only once, ‘ave I ever felt wary, unsure in ‘is presence. But it was only because I felt like I was betraying Mrs Branwell, and everything she ‘ad ever given me and done for me, but, then I realized that I could really, really love ‘im. ‘e treats me beautifully, Miss. There’s no sleeping dragon, only a warrior. A warrior who would protect all those ‘e loves fiercely and would take on ‘ell and ‘igh water before any ‘arm would come to those people whom ‘e loves.” Sophie took a deep breath, her cheeks a little pink.  
Tessa smiled. “He loves you dearly, Sophie. Let him in though, do not ever push him out.”  
Sophie could tell by the look in Tessa’s eyes that there was no need to say thank you, or any sort of thing remotely like that.  
As Sophie went from the room to help with breakfast, Tessa pressed her fingertips to her temples and closed her eyes.


	3. Chapter Two

Chapter Two  
. . . . . . .  
Will’s eyes slid across to table to where Tessa sat, resting her fore-head on a fist, her eyes closed. He wondered whether or not she was asleep.   
She looked ethereal. Her skin porcelain white, her lashes dusting her cheekbones like soft soot, her dark brown hair falling in curls down her back and around her face, her brows arched in innocent grace, a shadow of a smile on her full mouth.   
He watched her surreptiously, though his curiousness evident.   
With a gasp her eyes flew open suddenly and she started, her fist suddenly striking out into an invisible target in the air, only hitting nothing before sinking back into her chair with a shudder. All eyes were on her, thoroughly perplexed.   
She went bright red and murmured something which they all didn’t catch. “My deepest apologies. Devastating memory,” she said quickly, absolutely mortified.  
“What was it?” Will asked softly.  
She exhaled deeply, like a smoker. “If you really want to know, it was a day up at school, I got into a fight. But two Korean boys rescued me, after I was knocked unconscious. The punch, that’s the last thing I did before my head was knocked against a wall and I passed out. J-hope and Jungkook – the kindest boys I had ever met.” She gave a small laugh. Will regarded her closely, the way her voice ahd softened slightly when she said their names and how her eyes crinkled at the corners when she had complimented their behavior.   
“You were close to them?” asked Will, carefully aware of the ground he was treading on.   
“Oh, yes, they are like my brothers and they were – are – my best friends, all seven of them.” Her voice became light, and bright, with fondness. Will felt his heart pang. He remembered when he was a child, running around with Ella, how fondly she would speak of him to her friends, laughing and ruffling his hair. In the same tone and pretence that Tessa was now talking of her friends now.   
Charlotte smiled softly. “They sound lovely.”  
Tessa cackled, which made them jump a little. It quickly turned to a kindly laugh. “They really are anything but. One moment their steady flames, then they are firecrackers.” In a slow instant the smile faded from her face, her previous bright self faded as well, as though she were a candle and someone was slowly putting breath to her, the flame, gently blowing her away.   
“…but they are always burning stars.” She gave Will a long look after she had finished speaking before silently going from the dining room, her head bowed.   
Will couldn’t see if she was crying, if at all. 

. . . . . . . 

As Tessa shouldered her door open and her eyes widened at a brown paper bag on her vanity table. Cautiously she stepped over to the package and picked it up, peering inside. Realizing what was in the package, she emitted a soft gasp of warm surprise, feeling slightly incredulous.  
She gazed at the premier edition of their album Wings, in thin Helvetica, in bold silver.   
“The barstards,” she whispered. “Always a fucking puzzle.”


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Three  
. . . . . . .  
The motorcycle roared as Jungkook and Min sped down Regment Canal, the wind rushing in their ears, the cool Midnight London air tranquil and pleasant on Jungkook’s face, the wind running it’s fingers through his hair. He felt as though he could feel everything. From the density of Min’s arms wrapped around his waist, to where Min’s head lay rested on his shoulder headphones on drowning out the world, to the astronomical feel of life around him in this sleepless City.  
He felt as though the very blood in his veins were alight, alight with heavenly fire, like lit gunpowder, a fate he had blazing like a trail of fire upon his soul.   
An Incontrovertible truth.  
He felt a tap on his shoulder. Going for another two kilometers he slowed down on the beginning of Blackfriars Bridge and turned to Min as the roar of the engine died.   
Min gave him a slightly darkened look. “You really need to tell her.”  
Jungkook blushed, and was soulful thankful for the pitch black darkness that hid it so. “I don’t have a crush on Tess.”  
“No, you’re in love with her.’ Min corrected defiantly, and he crossed his arms. The blush became darker on Jungkook’s cheeks and hoped that Min didn’t correctly interpret his silence for the sentence he just couldn’t say. “And you know that I know that you’re in love with her, also that you are too at a loss of liberty to admit it so too.” Min raised a brow. “I know a lot of what goes on around here, more than enough to give Jin a run for his money and his place of roost.”  
“However not enough to knock Tess of her perch, though.” A smile tugged at the corner of Jungkook’s mouth.   
Min laughed. “No, she’s the leader, and the consequences dire if anyone takes that role, her, or us to challenge.” He quoted her words that she had said to them only three weeks before she had left for England, having been watching Missing You Already on the giant flat screen Samsung TV in her room at Longbourne Abbey.   
Min sighed nearly imperceptibly, his eyes closing. “I hate jet lag with a passion that burns brighter than the sun.” He murmured, wrapping his arms once again tightly around Jungkook’s waist, placing his ash grey head on Jungkook’s shoulder. “How fast can we get to Longbourne?”  
Jungkook didn’t reply only started the Harley Davidson bike once more and sped down the narrow, cobblestoned streets, just he, his soul, his beating heart and the thrum of the mechanical device beneath and around him.

. . . . . . . 

“Min,” Jungkook shook the sleeping passenger gently. “Wake up, we’re at Longbourne.”  
Min eye’s opened lightly, blinking a little and looking around before mumbling, “So I see.” Min adjusted his bag so it hung more comfortably by the right side of his waist, and patted Jungkook on the shoulder once. “She’s not silly, Joen Jungkook. She’s just lost.” Was all he said. He walked in lengthy strides due to his long legs up the cream gravel driveway, the gravel crunching underfoot. Jungkook sighed, and not wanting to wake the house up, he levered down the stand on the motorcycle and left it parked underneath an ancient towering Cherry tree, and followed Min, hoping greatly that his grandmother somehow had gotten wind that he had left Longbourne subconsciously in her sleep, for if she knew, he’d been in for one hell of a serve.  
Min, not risking the creak of the front entrance door walked through the stables area and along the crunchy weather-worn path that lead down to the lake where he and the others had swum has children, and ducked under an oak tree where the entrance to the Servant Quarters was placed. He shouldered opened the door and gestured to Jungkook to be as quiet as possible, before the two lightly treaded across the creaking floorboards and up three flights of stairs to the floor above the House’s entrance Hall, turned a corner, and came to another hall where the ceiling was painted cream, the walls red, the floor polished pine floorboards with a blood red floor runner made of velvet. One side of the long Hall had three doors painted cream leading to three bedrooms, the other side only two cream doors leading to two bedrooms.  
The sound of Jung Ho-seok snoring, strangely, was comforting and imposed reality upon the two sleepless beings greatly. A grin found its way to Jungkook’s face and he laughed softly, clapping Min on the shoulder by way of “goodnight”.  
Min stared after him as he disappeared into his room at the far end of the hall, and a smile played on his lips.   
“Fool, for he fell only fate.”


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Four  
. . . . . . .  
In an impossibly small amount of time, V was woken by bright, rare English sunshine that burst through the open window into the room, into his eyes. Whatever the weather, rain shine or snow (as long as it wasn’t pouring or it wasn’t the snow that came with winter-gales), he was always insistent on leaving his window open a little at night, as it helped him sleep, much to the question of his parents who always said that one morning they find him frozen in a block of ice in his bed.   
This coming to mind, V chuckled for a moment. Rolling on his back with a slight groan he buried his face in his hands, really wanting his body to shut down and go back into sleep. It, however, was most definitely not so. A knock sounded gently on his door.   
“Mr. Tae-hyung?” Elspeth said, her Scottish accent chipping into her time.   
“Elspeth, I do wish you’d call me V. God, You make sound as though I’m as old as my father.” He replied getting up and pulling on his dressing gown loosely and opening the door to the pretty girl with a face full of freckles and a mountain of frizzy scarlet curls, balancing a basket of clean washing on her hip.  
He let her through where she put the washing on his bed and looked slightly awkward. “Mr Tae-hyung, Mr. Hu has informed me that you are to be going to London today on formal business, and he sended me up ‘ere to ‘eckle you in a suit, if it is the last thing I be doing.”  
V chuckled. “You can tell Mr. Hu that there is no reason that a beautiful girl needs to heckle me into a suit.”  
Elspeth scrunched her freckle covered nose up. “You didna have to put it like tha’ though.”  
V raised a brow, and a smile as open and light as a new-bloomed flower came to his lips. “How did I put it?”  
“There’s a line between bin kindly and then bin…an absolute bludy flirt.” She opined strongly, her brows quirked.   
V looked at her quietly for a moment before applauding her. Elspeth’s mouth fell open, rather astounded.   
“Elspeth my dear, you’ve just made my day,” he said with a cattish smile that could put Cheshire Cat to shame, before pulling the t-shirt he had worn to bed over his head, revealing a broad chest, ripped and corded with muscle, which seemed shocking, considering his looked delicately thin and not one for muscle when he wore his clothes.  
Elspeth’s cheeks heated, which set her hair and freckles on fire.   
“I-I-I-uh…” she stammered. “I’ll be going’ now, Mr. Tae-hyung.” She managed to get out, before she virtually ran from V’s room. Only moments after she ahd sped from the room, Jin came into the room, closing the door sharply behind him.  
“What in Hades was that about?” Jin asked, his brown eyes wide. V grinned broadly to a nonplussed Jin.   
“Elspeth’s bisexual. Tell J-hope you owes me a coffee at The Vintage Cart.”   
Jin sighed, but nevertheless cast a withering but affectionate look at V. “I really should clock you over the head for that one.”  
V chuckled. “No, you couldn’t. But Tess would. You’re too nice.”  
“I’ll take that as a compliment and not observation of character.” Jin remarked.  
“I still can’t believe you just said that, this early in the morning.” Jin added, regarding the fact of Elspeth’s sexuality.   
“What’s the time?”  
“6:30. You’ve changed your tune, your never used to be a morning person. Don’t go becoming an early-bird, the bands already seen enough change with you kissing Kim at the ARIA’s on international television, in front of your mother, and Tessie going-“ he voice cut of abruptly. In a different way, to all of them, Theresa Gray really was something to them.   
To Jin he and Tessa shared a lot of things. The title of the sex icon of BTS, the title of Leaders of BTS (Though, when you thought about it, She truly wore the trousers in the band), been in total sync with one another nearly 24/7, both sharing the ability of ingenuity for every dirty trick in the book, etc. But when you are that close to somebody and suddenly they are ripped away from you and disappear from the earth…it’s the worst pain of all.  
“I miss her too,” V said after a while, casting a long look at Jin. “We all do, Jin.”  
A small smile came to Jin’s face, but it was sad. “I know you do. I just want her to come back home, home to us.”  
“Come here,” V said walking forward and wrapped his arms around Jin, who did so back. “Some things you just need to hug out.”  
“Hmm,” Jin said into V’s hair.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Five  
. . . . . . .   
She slid her eyes across the pages of A Tale Of Two Cities, the words filling her up and letting her think about them to infinity as they always did. Her eyes locked onto one paragraph and they seemed to stop there, reading the paragraph over and over again like clockwork. She didn’t believe that she had ever acknowledged that, of Charles Dickens description of Sydney Carton – An entrancing dateless person of many persons but salvaged from that vague group by the factor of his eternal clockwork heart.   
“Certainly fitting for the character,” A bored voice said from behind her, instantly recognizable as that of William Herondale’s.   
“Hmm, strangely it does remind me of you,” she replied, keeping her eyes glued to the words on the page, but consciously aware that his breath stirred her trendles of curls by her ear, his head beside her head. If she turned her head to the right their noses would touch.   
“Touché,” he supplied. He forgot just how many times he had curled up in the Library with the book in his hands, whether on the window-sill, hanging upside down from one of the ladders by the bookshelf, of in the same spot next to the fire where Tessa was.   
“What are you looking at Glory Days?” She asked him smoothly, arching a brow regally, her eyes still locked on the page, turning it delicately.   
There was a falter behind her, a hesitation that marred with the rhythm of the two beating hearts, that set another question, not quite known, hanging in the air.   
“Pardon?” Will said dryly, but they both knew that it wasn’t the case to cut to the chase. “That’s very facetious.”  
“Get the names right and you can get away with murder.” Tessa opined with a touch of smugness.   
“I feel that there is something else you wish to add to that sentence.”  
“Yes, Ha bloody ha.”  
Will grinned. “Which pretentious poet did you steal that from?”  
Tessa laughed. “Trust me, my Aunt Harriet was no poet.”  
Will paused for a moment, trying his best to quickly decide whether he dare take the liberty to ask the question he wanted to ask so badly or not. “Where, then, did you get your talent from then if not your Aunt?”  
“I got it from Strangers. After…after something happened to me, I immersed myself into literature, and these brilliant words, so I could block out the pain, but still understand it. I wanted to find something new, something extraordinary. I wanted….it was an accident really, a subconscious urge.” She gave a brittle laugh. “Strangers – William Shakespeare, Emily Dickinson, The Bronte Sisters, Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, Keats and Shelly.” Not giving a care in the world that Will was there she pulled her knees up to her chest and rested her chin on her knee-caps. “I had to teach myself really.”  
Will hesitantly slid onto the Sofa beside her. “Do you miss it? Do you miss New York?”  
Tessa stared down at the tips of her boots picking out from underneath her dress. “Yes, I do miss New York. Yes, I miss the whole world, the world as I once knew it. Yes, I so desperately sometimes want to be running down Maiden Avenue, my skirts flying up, my hair loose and wild, running past the blind flower girl on the corner of Eighth street, chasing the life I could have lead, the life from which I wanted to bury. Yes, sometimes a painful ache plagues me – then I want to be back home, writing novels, reading them, having fun with the friends that I loved so dearly.” A single tear balanced and glistened on her lower eyelashes, only a blink would be needed for it to fall.   
Will felt stunned and broken. He…he had never seen Tessa like this. Suddenly she wasn’t this bright, intellectually rebellious, quiet girl with a beautiful smile anymore. Will was at a loss at what to say, because he didn’t know how to…heal her, to make her smile again. Because he were the broken night, and Tessa was brilliant day, radiant, warm, so very far away, seemingly that she couldn’t break, and never would be. And wasn't it fitting that, as the dark creatures he hunted sought earth's beacon of light, so he chased Tessa's aura of goodness, his love for her, when it ground them both to the bone.   
She blinked, and the tear dropped from her lashes to her dress, and set in there slowly like a stain.   
He pulled her in close to him, wrapping his arms around her, resting his temple on her head. Her breath didn’t still, and she didn’t hesitate or try to move away. Instead she surprised him by leaning into his embrace, closing her eyes gently as tears cascaded down her cheeks, not making a sound.   
“Will,” she asked after a while. “Have you ever wanted to turn back time, to erase hurt, pain, to fix a catastrophic thing you did? I believe I already know your answer but I’d like to hear it from your lips, anyhow.”  
Will looked down softly at her. “Yes. There has been quite a few I would consider changing – but only ever four thing have I ever wanted to change. I can’t tell you them, I’m sorry.”  
“Will, I did not ask that of you. They’re for you and you only until you’re ready to share them. Not before.” she exhaled deeply, like that of a smoker. She exhaled sharply. “Will….I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.” She whispered, curled into his side. “I shouldn’t be counseling you with my troubles.”  
Will gave a hollow laugh. “Compared to the ones I have counseled on you and Jem…been strong all the times, it’s not all cracked up as it is supposed to be.”  
Tessa said frustrated, “I just feel foolish, and weak –“  
“Don’t say that, there’s nothing foolish, or weak, with missing those you hold dear. I miss my family every single day, and it cuts me deeper and worse than any blade, and leaves and even uglier scar.” Will replied softly, inhaling deeply. He so deeply wanted to fix her though she wasn’t his to fix.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The song is "Carry You Home" by James Blunt. It is a truly beautiful song.

Chapter Six  
. . . . . . .  
Tessa lightly stepped into the dining hall, her eyes kept to the ground beneath her feet, avoiding Wills gaze which had locked on her being as soon as she had entered the dining hall. She slid into a chair next to Jem, so she was sitting in between Jem and Will.  
Will looked at her softly which she couldn’t entirely brush off, and glanced back at him. His eyes were a soft indigo, soft and warm, and it made her heart flutter. She wasn’t used to looking at that slightly unnatural colour outside the frames of artists paintings. Slightly reluctantly, she pulled her gaze from his and directed her gaze to Charlotte, having just come and sat at the head of the table, her usual authorities grace about her which was good to see. Henry wasn’t present at the table. Which, in a way, was all the more better.  
“Mrs Branwell,” Tessa called up the table. “I acknowledge that Mr. Lightwood must be dealt with come hell or high water or waltzing Mathilda, but could I be excused for the morning? I wouldn’t ask, only I have something rather important to do, and Li Pen will have my head if I don’t.”  
Charlotte, Will, Jem, Sophie and Thomas who ahd come in to serve the food, looked up and properly paid attention.  
“Pardon?” Charlotte said, nonplussed.  
“Mrs Branwell, I acknowledge that Mr. Lightwood must be dealt with come hell or high water or waltzing Mathilda, but could I be excused for the morning? I wouldn’t ask, only I have something rather important to do, and Li Pen will have my head if I don’t.” Tessa repeated  
“Who is Li Pen?” Will and Jem asked, Jem visibly concerned, Will’s eyes were narrowed.  
Tessa gave them all an assuring smile. “Don’t you worry, I’ve known him since I was five. He’s saved my life, twice, and is protective over me as a mother bear is over her cubs. He wouldn’t hurt me. Besides, he’s a monk.” She laughed. “If you’re really that anxious, you can watch if you wish. If not, just knock the screen down with one of the pokers,” she gestured to the instruments by the fireplace, before she stood from her chair, and stood on the table.  
The whole room gawped at her, even the portraits on the walls.  
She closed her eyes and lowered her head back, before her eyes flew open and she was gone.  
As soon as she had disappeared, Jem and Will both felt their stomachs drop. Moments later a black screen, a largely moderate one appeared , floating about two and a half feet from the table.  
”What on earth –“ Charlotte hissed, rushing around to where Jem and will had once sat – now standing – along with Sophie and Thomas, who were frozen on the spot.  
“Thomas, go get Henry,” she hissed, waving a hand, looking at the screen with wide eyes as though the screen were a bomb that was about to go off.  
Breakfast now entirely forgotten, Thomas ran like the wind from the dining hall. And, then, the screen came to life.  
Wills eyes went wide, Jem’s hand rose slowly to his mouth, Sophie gasped along with Charlotte.  
“O Dduw,” Will whispered.  
And they’re all born pretty in New York City tonight  
The screen showed Tessa, earthen and beautiful, floating in the middle of an dark grey ocean, wearing nothing but a white transparent t-shirt that just scraped her midthighs with a low neck.  
She blinked, and the screen zoomed in, so that her face was a lot more apparent and clear on the screen.  
There was no contradiction for it. Tessa Gray was nothing short of beautifully striking. Her face white, along with the rest of her skin, was porcelain, not a single imperfection. Her cheekbones were angular and contour, that gave her a look that she was off Asian descent, her full mouth a dark red, her eyelashes long and dark like soot that brushed her cheekbones. Her hair and brows were as black as the night sky, the white that was scattered through Tessa’s hair was like stars. As though someone had dipped a paintbrush into white paint, pulled back and let the bristles go, using Tessa’s hair as a canvas.  
Her closed eyes snapped open, revealing a beautiful, hypnotic cerulean blue that was honest and innocent and all electrifying.  
Her long legs floated lazily in the water, her hands clasped together above her head. She blinked once slowly, before sinking beneath the waves, gracefully, as though she were a ballerina and her partner was lowering her slowly, gently to the ground with graceful ease.  
Occasionally a tiny bubble of oxygen escaped from her nose and floated to the rolling surface, a little smile flitting on Tessa’s mouth, as she was pulled deeper and deeper, not seemingly aware that her oxygen was running out. Dangerously quick.  
Ten seconds past.  
And someone’s little girl was taken from the world tonight  
Tessa’s lungs throbbed, and her throat and the space behind her eyes ached as well and her nasal cavity. From the position that she had entered the water had gone through her and was pouring into her lungs, and the salt water was slowly starting to irritate her eyes.  
She looked up and just realized her deep she was, and she couldn’t’ stop what was pulling her to the deep. I’m going to die, she thought, and horror filled her. tears leaked from her eyes and she pressed her hands to her mouth to stop a sob. She hated it, she was dying, and she couldn’t see anything. She couldn’t see Jem, or Will or anyone else, only darkness. But yet, they could see her, they could see her dying.  
Under the stars, and stripes.  
Finally she couldn’t take it anymore. She breathed in and she screamed as water rushed into her body with such a force that it pushed her backwards, causing a momentary strain against the thing that was pulling her to the deep.  
As strong as you were, tender you go  
She dryly sobbed as fire filled her lungs and her body and her vision was darkening, darkening to a dark pitch black than she was seeing. She felt her heartbeat quickly decapitating.  
I’m watching you breathing, for the last time. A song for your heart  
She felt a gentle jolt go through her, and the sound of Di Giovanni on the violin…and everything stopped, except Di Giovanni….  
But when it is quiet  
Jem felt weak. “No, no…” he whispered as he stared at the once living girl floating dead in the grey sea water, yet being pulled deeper and deep to the deep.  
I know what it means and  
Tears ran down his cheeks and he felt his very heartbeat constrict. Like lightening, he turned to Will who was frozen, his blue eyes staring unseeingly at the now dead Tessa Gray.  
As though he felt Jem’s gaze he snapped from it and stared horrorstruck into Jem’s eyes. Suddenly he wrapped his arms fiercely around Jem, and held him tightly as tears spilled from his silver eyes onto the shoulder of Wills shirt. Will buried his face in the crook of Jem’s shoulder and rocked them both gently, nearly imperceptibly.  
I’ll carry you home. I’ll carry you home.  
Charlotte and Sophie went from the room quickly, just in time to counter Henry and Thomas in the hall, and tell them not to go into the dining hall, no matter what.  
Charlotte didn’t explain. She couldn’t bring herself to. She couldn’t bring herself to them that, like she would for the rest of her life, she saw someone die right in front of her eyes, and, she couldn’t even do anything to help them.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Seven  
. . . . . . .  
Will’s eyes opened hazily at the morning sun now beaming through the open, frost-covered window, and then peered down at the thin, silver-quick boy in his arms, his head resting on his parabatai’s chest.   
It had been a very long time since Jem had been wrapped in his arm, Will reflected, his brain not yet processing what had happened the previous day. Eyes closed, lashes dusting his cheekbones, he hair falling softly into his eyes, absolutely motionless except the soft rising and falling of his chest, he looked to beautiful, too earthen to be true.  
Jem’s arms were wrapped tightly around Will’s waist, as though he were a ship and Will was his anchor. Will felt comforted by Jem’s presence with him. the events of yesterday had not yet caught with him. Gently, Will slid down the bed a little until his head was level on the pillow next to Jem’s. He gazed at Jem and as though Jem could physically feel his gaze his eyes opened gently and they were shining with unshed tears and exhaustion. And it all came rushing back. In a matter of seconds, Will wasn’t Will. He didn’t feel human. He didn’t feel tht he was anything at all. A dull, aching hollowness filled him and all her wanted to do was cry. But he couldn’t, wouldn’t and really shouldn’t, not when there was Jem, and he was the one that was truly hurting.  
“Jem.” Will said softly, his heartstrings tugging fiercely to the point Will felt that it wanted to wrench itself from the rest of him and jump from his throat to shatter to a million pieces on the ground.  
Or wherever broken, un-healable hearts went.   
“Will.” His eyes searched Will’s face. “Are you alright?” dark grey shadows were underneath his eyes, he having been awake crying on and off until four ‘o’ clock in the morning, despite protests, Will staying faithfully by his side, murmuring soft things to him and trying his best to comfort his parabatai.  
Will exhaled deeply. “It’s you I worry about, Ke Jian Ming.” His parabatai’s Chinese name rolled easily over his tongue, though it was extremely rare that he ever used it.   
Jem’s eyes went wide as Will said the name that his family had once called.   
“You’re improving.” Jem said, having started giving Will Mandarin lessons three years ago, not speaking so much, but understanding. However, it really was to no avail, apparently.  
Will’s hand reached out and lightly brushed Jem’s cheek with a soft smile. “Oh, shut up. You know what I mean.”  
A soft, sincere look came to Jem’s eyes. “Yes, I do.”  
Will remembered back to once upon a time he had been in love with Jem, and it made him smile internally. He had been fourteen, younger and a little bit more stupid than he was, and he just couldn’t help himself.   
Because at that time if he had – and were – the night, then Jem was brilliant day, radiant, warm, so very far away, always. And wasn't it fitting that, as the dark creatures he hunted sought earth's beacon of light, so he chased Jem's aura of goodness, I hope and really, in vain.  
He remembered Christmas that year (The two fourteen) the two had been out in Hyde Park, both a little drunk (Surprisingly, Jem more than Will), out in the snow and the frost and laughing over the exploding Christmas Cracker that Will ahd “borrowed” from Henry’s workshop and given to Jessamine, only for the cracker to explode and a little fist come out of one end of it and punch Jessamine squarely in her eye, leaving a fantastic bruise.  
The essential reason that they were both out in the park, they were both avoiding the Institute’s Christmas Party as though it were the plague. And Jem had dragged Will out of the Institute as soon as the Lightwoods entered, to avoid complete and utter chaos.  
Will gave a yell of surprise as something hard and cold hit him in the back of the head. A snowball. Will spun around, and ducked as another one flew his way, missing his ear by a hair-spreadeth.   
“Well, that’s hardly fair,” Will opined with a shout, throwing another snowball which hit Jem squarely in the chest.   
Jem made a noise that sounded between half laugh and a gasp. His eyes twinkled, as he threw another snowball at Will, which, successfully, him on his collarbone.   
With Will, it was very easy to go that little bit too far over the line. He evidently found out so when the next snow ball he threw out his parabatai hit him in the chest and sent him plummeting to the frost-covered ground.   
Will instaneously ran to his side and was stunned to find him laughing and not coughing, or worse, coughing up blood due to an attack.  
“Nice one,” Jem said, his eyes twinkling once he had stopped laughing. “Phenomenal aim, indeed.”  
Will scoffed and laid down beside his parabatai in the snow. He noticed that Jem wasn’t wearing a coat and that he must be absolutely freezing.  
“You must be freezing,” Will whispered.   
“Only a little. But the snowball fight warmed me up.”   
Will sat up and pulled off his coat and put it over Jem who shook his head but smiled gratefully anyhow. “You don’t have to, Will. You need it more than me.” Jem tried to give Wills coat back to him but Will refused and insisted that he was fine.  
“Have it on your own head if you’re stuck in bed tomorrow with a cold. I certainly won’t be nursing you.”  
Will smiled cheekily. “Oh, what an absolute shame if that were the outcome of this night. How mundane. Besides, if I did catch a cold, I’d rather you look after me than one of the Silent Brothers. I don’t particularly fancy their way of having their eyes sewn shut and yet they seem to have 20/20 vision.”  
Jem laughed. Will had no idea how it happened but fragments of snow clung to Jem’s silver lashes. Shadows from the moonlight and gas-lit streets danced across Jem’s beautiful face and Will felt his heart tingle.  
“What is it, Will?” Jem asked, his tone gentle as the twinkle in his eyes. It went enchantingly hand in hand with Jem himself, very much to the point of irresistibility. Though Jem was quite drunk, he didn’t real smell of alcohol, and there was no slurring to his speech that usually indicated intoxication.   
Will closed his eyes to half lids. At the same time they turned their heads the one another, so their noses were pressed together. “You look very lovely, tonight, Ke Jian Ming.”   
Still to that day, Will wasn’t sure who started the kiss. But he knew one thing – at that time he had never wanted it to end. His fingers tangled in Jem’s hair, Jem’s arms around him pressing the two together, then Jem on top of Will as snow fell around them, feeling no cold. Will remembered the alcohol-induced fumble a sweet line been kissed down his throat, an outstanding mark left there in the morning, the way the two of them had fought and resisted breath as they had kissed, not wanting to pause or stop for anything, anyone.  
“Will?” Will was interrupted from his reminiscence by the soft tone of Jem’s voice.   
“Yes?”  
“Are you ok? Your eyes sort of misted over.”  
Will couldn’t come up with a reply, only watching the shadows of the disgusting day outside dancing across Jem’s face.  
Just like last time.......


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter Eight  
. . . . . . .  
Thomas drew in the smoke from the cigarette in his fingers and blessed the warmth that suddenly filled his chest, the smoke in his lungs that would one day eventually kill him. After a couple of moments he breathed it out again, lowering his eyes to half-lids, careful not to breathe it all over Mannerling.   
“You really should stop smoking those cursed things, next thing you know they’ll be giving you cancer and all sorts of nasties and then you’ll be 6-foot under.” Mannerling opined with a surreptious look at the cigarette dangling from Thomas’s lower lip.  
“If I cannot bring heaven to its knees I shall raise hell,” Thomas quoted from one of his “pretentious poets” (name courtesy of Mannerling). This caused Mannerling to scoff but nevertheless give him an affectionate look.   
“When do you think that Lady Gray is too return? She should have been back nearly six weeks ago. The secret service is already out looking for her. If she is even alive.”   
Mannerling felt her heart clench and threw Thomas a sharp look. “Shush, trust me. Lady Gray won’t be dead – that woman can’t die.” Mannerling laughed hollowly. “Not even when she was pushed from London bridge to the Thames, she didn’t die. She is an unbreakable force.”  
Thomas looked down at Mannerling, who was Gray’s lady maid, and had been as good as a mother to her, but secretly had great contempt for the girl at first, only for it to form into the greatest of respect and even great care in the past three years.   
“You changed your tune. I remember to once upon a time you would have gladly seen her eat dirt.”  
Mannerling felt quietly irritated. “Yes, but there was the next best thing to a war – and in that happening – Theresa Gray saved my life by killing a bitch who would have killed me and the others with no abandon. I’m also breaking a promise by telling you this, that her Lady made. And when you were temporarily blinded by mustard gas, her Ladyship never left your side. She was so worried that you would die. She was by your side day and night. She didn’t even leave your side to eat or sleep. And when you were eventually able to walk again, when you temporarily need a walking cane, who helped you when you were still blind? Her Ladyship did. When you couldn’t work because of your blindness, who kept you at Longbourne where in any other household you would have been sacked? Her Ladyship did along with Master Hu. And when you get cancer from those bloody cigarettes, who try to help you with it? Her Ladyship will.”  
Mannerling paused for breath. “And it’s not just you. When Gwyneth was pregnant, who helped her and then delivered little December and fought the Nuns tooth and nail when they tried to take December away? Her Ladyship. When the staff Dowager Countess packed and went away with only a note on the dining hall table who went around and did the cooking, cleaning, dressing and assisting without wanting any thanks to the Dowager Countess? Her Ladyship. When Ann-Marie was accused trafficking stolen goods with her husband, who was the one who got her out the creek? Her Ladyship.”  
Thomas was pale, more so than he usually was. “Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”  
“I thought you knew, and, besides, as you didn’t I was told to keep it a secret, but I broke it to you just now. Really though. You didn’t get the feminine American accent? She’s the only American woman within eighty miles of the place.” Mannerling plucked the cigarette from Thomas’s fingers and took a single, deep drag before giving it back to him, blowing the smoke cleanly out through her nose moments later into the cool morning air.  
“You don’t think the Russians have caught up with her do you? She’s up to her neck in the Russian Mafia.”  
“There was nothing special about Vladimir Netrovosky.” Mannerling dead-panned, raising her thin brows to Thomas.  
Thomas laughed hollowly. “It was always a race.”  
Mannerling narrowed her eyes. “What do you mean?”  
“When was Tessa Gray to die?”  
The two sat in silence for a while.   
“I honestly don’t know how she does it. All that time, I mean. She has time to be a writer, she has time to second time with her family, in America and here, she has time to look after the Korean Boys and be in a band with them, she has time to sit down with us servants for the Hu’s if we have any worries or troubles.”  
Thomas lit another cigarette. “I’d love to know what she does in her own time.”  
“Reads, writes, teaches the Poh Hu girl American strip. ” Supplied Mannerling, who chuckled a little.   
“Funny Bugger isn’t she?” Thomas looked up at Mannerling.   
“Marvelous.”

. . . . . . . 

Her face broke water but she didn’t feel it. She couldn’t feel anything. She wasn’t conscious, or aware of anything at all.  
But the waves washed underneath her, carrying her, rushing in her ears and over her face, making her limbs float lazily, as though she were in some bizarre sleep position. She was floating on her back. Her dark red lipstick was faded from her lips, and a little smudged around the lines of her lips. Her hair bloomed underneath her like a blossom, her white top clinging to her body.   
A faint look of surprise was on her deathly pale face, and her eyelids were closed.   
The sea was sweeping her towards the shore, gently, gently. Up and down, up and down, waves were borne and died.   
Slowly, overhead, the sky went from its darkened blue to an overcast, stormy grey, and turned the sea that very same colour. English rain began to pour down, soaking everything, seeping into the tiniest cracks, seeping into the already muddied ground.   
It poured down on the girl floating in the water.   
She didn’t it’s cold, the sting of it against her bare skin, or the amount of it that poured down on her. She was oblivious.  
Completely and utterly oblivious.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter Nine  
. . . . . . .  
“Oy! Chuck it o’er ‘ere!” A fisherman yelled cheerfully to his little son who was carrying a great coil of heavy Scottish made rope. He stumbled over with a broad grin on her face, splattered with mud, and heaved the rope off his shoulder to his Father. The Fisherman easily heaved the heavy rope onto his shoulder, picked up his son, and placed him on his shoulders. His little son laughed and rested his arms and head on his Father’s.  
“Dad,” the little son said loudly over the wind. “When we get down to the sea – if I take my shoes and socks off like Mammy says – can I splash in the water? Please?”  
The Fisherman gave a deep, booming laugh. “Ah, course ye can. Be careful, though. The wa’er will be beyond freezin’!”  
As the two made their way down the rough, dirt-beaten track to the sea the Fisherman noticed his little son’s quietness, him usually been quite a chatter-box.  
“You alright, mate?” He asked him.  
His sons arms wrapped tighter around his head and didn’t immediately answer.  
“Son?” the Fisherman took his son off his shoulder, put him on the ground and looked at him a little worried.  
His little son shook his head. “Dad, Mammy told me about the Sealies and that apparently if you see them they take you to the bottom of the ocean?”  
The Fisherman relaxed and ruffled his little son’s hair affectionately. “Ah, mate. Sealies don’t exist. They’re made up. Stories, mate, stories. Stories is what yer Mammy bin tellin’ yair. They don’t exist, not really.” He rubbed his sons back but was taken aback when he was answered with an accusing look.  
“Oh, yeah? Well what do you think she is? The girl on the rocks!” He pointed over to at the lower part of the beach, a seemingly naked female was lying on the rocks. “She must be a sealie, for she’s no mermaid! And she isn’t a faeire, for she no wings Dad!”  
The Fisherman confused, looked over to the rocks and muttered a foul word, not before putting his hands over his sons ears. He sprinted down the rest of the track and over the beach to the girl on the rocks.  
She wasn’t naked, but she was nearly so. She was clothed in an un-cuffed, un-collared mens shirt, the rest of her bare, with no undergarments. The rouge on her lips was slightly smudged as her hair that went down to her knees was flecked with grey, though she appeared barely more than that of a teenager.  
“Oh Lord. Son. Son!” The Fisherman yelled at his little son, whom of which was nearly immediately by his side. “Mate, go to Mammy. And tell Mammy that we’ve found her. The Hu girl.” . . . . . . . “Will you please shut up and leave me alone?” Kim Nam-joon said exasperatedly to the grey Persian cat that was sitting on the coffee table and giving him a slightly accusing, reproachful glare. Beaton gave an innocent meow which made Kim want to roll up the newspaper he was reading and give the cat a decent thump. Beaton jumped off the coffee table onto the arm of the sofa then onto to its back, giving a paw at the newspaper. Kim sighed and relented to giving Beaton a scratch behind the ears, all the while turning to page 7. It seemed it was a race between who got the name for the worst crime district in England – London’s East End or Oxfordshire? With a sigh he switched back to the front cover which made him grin. TESSIE GRAY TAKING THE PISS OUT OF RUSSIA WITH HIT SONG AND AMERICAN SEDUCTION How he’d bet all his life away to see the looks on the other’s faces when they saw the front page of The Golden Globe. He got up from the squashy black leather sofa, and went over to the windows, yanking open the heavy, three meter drapes, sending out a little puff of dust. In four days it would be Midsummer’s Eve. Tessa’s 17th birthday. He smiled a little balefully. He just couldn’t believe that she was only 17, for she permanently was so much older and wiser than her years. He folded the paper and tucked it under his arm, pushing his glasses further up his nose. “Come on, cat.” He chided to the grey Persian, who followed him at heel all the way to the Hu’s drawing room where the cat then placed itself in Kim’s lap. With a smug smirk, Kim threw the folded paper into the lap of the sleeping Mrs Hughes (Head housemaid) who awoke rather abruptly, greatly startled. “Mrs H, would you be kind enough to make sure everyone has their noses scrubbed on the front page?” He called as he stepped from the drawing room to the grand entrance hall, Beaton in his arms. “The shock would do them good. Plus they could do with a laugh.”


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter Ten  
. . . . . . .  
Poh, Jin, and Mistress Hu (Master Hu’s wife) took one look at the paper and roared with laughter at the title and the picture of Tessa on the front with her dark red lipstick and a dress to put Marilyn Monroe to shame, giving the finger to a portrait of the Tzar of Russia.   
“What is it you find amusing?” Master Hu asked his daughter and wife pleasantly.   
“Oh, nothing dear. Just Tess been Tess.” Cho Hu said, smiling at her elderly husband.   
“And taking the piss out of Russia.” Poh added, earning a light slap over the head from her mother who tutted.   
“My darling, you are not to swear. Even though, really, it is the stated truth though.” She chided gently. “I do wonder why Tess is suddenly on the front page now, though.” Cho worried her lip.   
Master Hu delicately gently pulled the newspaper and from daughters hands. “It is not so much why. It is the timing. Right now, when she has been missing, this comes to light. This signals that she may still be ok, as we have lost the trace we ahd of her in London. There is also another attachment. Axel Mortmain. He is a likely candidate to have something to do with the trace on her we lost. If not, she has done a bunker, most likely due to him.” Master Hu gave a heavy sigh. “We’re trying our best, please be assured of that fact.” He pushed his glasses further up his nose.


End file.
